Last week, after attending a 4 Mile Run Watershed workshop, I had a
brief conversation with an official of the Urban Redevelopment Authority
concerning the Oakland Transit Connector project. As you are all aware,
the project is a city initiative to construct a roadway from the Almono
site in Hazelwood to Carnegie Mellon University and other sites in Oakland.
This project would pass through and decimate two neighborhoods, The Run
and Panther Hollow.

The URA official mentioned that one reason for this roadway project
is that it currently takes 40 minutes by bus to go from near the Almono
site in Hazelwood to Oakland. This project has once again brought to
the surface a myriad of problems. I would like to share ten solutions
for consideration by Oakland’s three councilmen, the councilman
for The Run, community organizations, and others who either support
or are undecided about this roadway project.

1) Express public buses must be employed from the Almono site in Hazelwood
to Oakland. Such buses traveling down Second Avenue onto Brady Street
underneath the Birmingham Bridge would be on Forbes Avenue in Oakland
in approximately seven minutes at most times of the day–without
impacting any adjacent neighborhoods.

2) If needed, an additional roadway could be built adjacent to Brady
Street for the exclusive use of buses.

3) Instead of the Almono site’s future tenants traveling to the
universities in Oakland, the universities and health institutions should
expand at the Almono site to satisfy the tenants’ needs, and
the needs of the people of Hazelwood.

4) The fundamental focus for the development of the Almono site must
be for the enhancement of the quality of life for the people of Hazelwood.

5) There must be a moratorium on any further expansion by universities
and developers in Oakland.

6) There must be honest in-depth Impact Statements on how any future
development plans in Oakland affect its longtime residents.

7) Plans for any future expansion by universities and developers in
Oakland must be presented to the city council for approval.

8) The local media must end their silence and not sit by idly as Oakland
becomes systematically destroyed by its two major universities and developers,
both in the residential and business districts.

9) The watershed problems that residents of The Run have suffered for
far too long must be resolved immediately without any quid pro quo requests
by supporters of the Oakland Transit Connector.

10) Human dignity must be the highest priority in any decision-making,
for when that belief is fully understood and implemented, problems become
easier to resolve.

Pitthetic: noun – a university, organization, government
entity, or individual that negatively impacts a community by action
or inaction; adjective – pathetic as a direct result of
a university, organization, government entity, or individual's negative
influence.